VEHICLE DATA RECORDING SYSTEM

- MAGNA ELECTRONICS INC.

A vision system for a vehicle includes at least one camera having a field of view exterior the vehicle. An image processor is operable to process image data captured by the camera. When the vehicle is parked, a control controls the camera to capture frames of image data at a first capture rate. The control compares a frame of captured imaged data to at least one previous frame of captured image data. Responsive to the comparison determining a change in the frames of captured image data beyond a threshold degree of change, (i) the control increases the capture rate to a second capture rate, (ii) the at least one camera captures frames of image data at the second capture rate and (iii) the control activates a recording device to record images captured by the camera at the second capture rate.

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Description
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

The present application claims the filing benefits of U.S. provisional applications, Ser. No. 61/893,489, filed Oct. 21, 2013, and Ser. No. 61/760,364, filed Feb. 4, 2013, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to imaging systems or vision systems for vehicles.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Use of imaging sensors in vehicle imaging systems is common and known. Examples of such known systems are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,949,331; 5,670,935; and/or 5,550,677, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a vision system or imaging system for a vehicle that utilizes one or more cameras to capture images exterior of the vehicle, and provides the communication/data signals, including camera data or image data that may be displayed or processed to provide the desired display images and/or processing and control, depending on the particular application of the camera and vision or imaging system. The present invention provides a vehicle data recording system that is operable to record data captured by one or more cameras or image-based sensors and/or one or more other sensors or non-image based sensors of the vehicle. The system of the present invention provides a triggering means to trigger or initiate data capture for a parked vehicle in a manner that captures data responsive to a triggering event indicative of a change in the scene at or around the vehicle.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a vision system for a vehicle includes at least one camera disposed at a vehicle equipped with the vehicle vision system. The at least one camera has a field of view exterior the equipped vehicle and is operable to capture image data. An image processor is operable to process image data captured by the at least one camera and a data recording device is operable to record image data captured by the at least one camera. A control controls operation of the at least one camera and, responsive to a determination that the equipped vehicle is in a parked state, the control controls the at least one camera to capture frames of image data at a first capture rate. Responsive to image processing of captured image data, the control compares a frame of captured imaged data to at least one previous frame of captured image data. Responsive to the comparison determining a change in the frames of captured image data beyond a threshold degree of change, (i) the control increases the capture rate to a second capture rate, (ii) the at least one camera captures frames of image data at the second capture rate and (iii) the control activates the data recording device to record the images captured at the second capture rate.

Thus, the present invention periodically or episodically captures frames of image data and processes the captured image data to determine when a threshold degree of change occurs in the scene being monitored by the camera (such as when a person walks by or up to the parked vehicle). When such a threshold degree of change occurs, the system increases the rate of capture (such as from capturing one frame every second or every five seconds or the like to capturing at least 20 frames per second or at least 30 frames per second or the like) and records the captured image data (such as captured video image data) on the data recording device. Thus, the system reduces the power consumption of the parked vehicle by episodically capturing image data at a slower rate and only captures video images and activates the data recording device when the system determines that there is a threshold or significant change in the frames of image data captured by the camera or cameras.

These and other objects, advantages, purposes and features of the present invention will become apparent upon review of the following specification in conjunction with the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a plan view of a vehicle with a vision system and imaging sensors or cameras that provide exterior fields of view in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a chart showing the processing steps that the data recording system of the present invention undergoes at an activating time ta;

FIG. 3 is a chart showing a time pattern for the cyclical wake up and sleep pattern for the data recording system of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is an image showing the initial environmental scene at the time the vehicle is parked;

FIG. 5 is an image showing the environmental scene at a later time after the vehicle is parked;

FIG. 6 shows the scene or image of FIG. 4 when mosaiced in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 7 shows the scene or image of FIG. 5 when mosaiced in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 8 shows the result when calculating the difference between the images of FIGS. 7 and 6 (the image in FIG. 8 was inverted for clarity) in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 9A shows the image of FIG. 8, with the brightness of some of the different pixels/areas marked by inclining numbers in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 9B is a sectional cut out of the image of FIG. 9A, with the different pixels/areas enlarged in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 10A is the image of FIG. 9A after a contrast enhancement;

FIG. 10B is a cut out of the same region shown in FIG. 9B as cut out of FIG. 10A;

FIGS. 11A and 11B show the same images of FIGS. 9B and 10B, respectively, with the brightness value labels adapted to the new light settings;

FIG. 12 is a flow chart of a decision process of the data recording system of the present invention;

FIG. 13 is an exemplary branch in the field of view of a sensor of the data recording system of the present invention;

FIG. 14 is a mosaiced difference image showing the differences that may be detected by movement of the branch in FIG. 13;

FIG. 15 is a counter table for pixel locations;

FIGS. 16A-17B show counter tables and triggerings that may occur due to a waving branch such as like that shown in FIGS. 13 and 14;

FIG. 18 is a cropped image of the image of FIG. 4;

FIG. 19 is a mosaiced image of the image of FIG. 18;

FIG. 20 is a chart showing sensitivity modes for the data recording system of the present invention as implemented on an electrical vehicle or the like;

FIG. 21 is a schematic of a jammer attack scenario, where the vehicle is equipped with a jammer detector of the present invention; and

FIG. 22 is a schematic showing a scene where a crowd of pedestrians 90 is about to enter a road with a vehicle 22 approaching, where the pedestrians may be sensed by other vehicles and such information may be communicated to the approaching vehicle in accordance with the present invention.

 DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

A driver assist system and/or vision system and/or object detection system and/or alert system may operate to capture images exterior of the vehicle and process the captured image data to detect objects at or near the vehicle and in the predicted path of the vehicle, such as to assist a driver of the vehicle in maneuvering the vehicle in a rearward direction. The object detection may utilize detection and analysis of moving vectors representative of objects detected in the field of view of the vehicle camera, in order to determine which detected objects are objects of interest to the driver of the vehicle, such as when the driver of the vehicle undertakes a reversing maneuver.

Referring now to the drawings and the illustrative embodiments depicted therein, a vehicle 10 includes an imaging system or vision system 12 that includes one or more imaging sensors or cameras (such as a rearward facing imaging sensor or camera 14a and/or a forwardly facing camera 14b at the front (or at the windshield) of the vehicle, and/or a sidewardly/rearwardly facing camera 14c, 14b at the sides of the vehicle), which capture images exterior of the vehicle, with the cameras having a lens for focusing images at or onto an imaging array or imaging plane of the camera (FIG. 1). The vision system 12 is operable to process image data captured by the cameras and may provide displayed images at a display device 16 for viewing by the driver of the vehicle. Optionally, the vision system may process image data to detect objects, such as objects to the rear of the subject or equipped vehicle during a reversing maneuver, or such as approaching or following vehicles or vehicles at a side lane adjacent to the subject or equipped vehicle or the like.

Vehicles are often equipped with cameras and other environmental sensors. Such cameras and/or sensors are typically deactivated or off or in a sleep mode when the vehicle is parked and turned off in order to save energy and reduce electrical power consumption. Some systems of a vehicle may stay awake when the vehicle is parked or may stay partially/intermittently/periodically awake when the vehicle is parked or may be awakable or episodically awakable, such as responsive to an external trigger or the like, such as a vehicle door lock system or vehicle alarm system or the like.

The vehicle data or damage recording system of the present invention uses the on board cameras and environmental sensors of an equipped vehicle to record the scene at or around the equipped vehicle at a time when (or just before) the vehicle is hit by another vehicle, animal or person. The system of the present invention thus uses the camera or cameras already present on the vehicle. For example, the camera or cameras used by the recording system may be part of a multi-camera vision system or surround view system or rear backup aid system or forward facing camera system of the vehicle (and may utilize aspects of the systems described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,855,755, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety). Such use of cameras already present on the vehicle for other purposes reduces the cost of the recording system, since no dedicated cameras are needed for the recording system when the recording system is added to the vehicle.

Employment of an advanced wake up algorithm allows the system to record the environmental scene before the vehicle is hit. The present invention thus may provide identification of the opponent or collider or the opponent's license plate or the like, such as in “hit-and-run” situations or the like.

At the time the equipped vehicle identifies that it may likely be hit or was hit, the system of the vehicle may start to record the environmental scene. The system may record image data captured by some or all of the vehicle installed cameras (and/or remote cameras within a communication range of the equipped vehicle (such as with a X2Car communication range), such as traffic monitoring cameras at intersections or security cameras at buildings, parking lots and/or the like). Optionally, outputs of other environmental sensors of the vehicle, such as ultrasound sensors, capacitive proximity sensors, touch sensors, heartbeat sensors (such as sensors utilizing aspects of the sensors and systems described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,258,932, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety), RADAR sensors, LADAR sensors, LIDAR sensors, time of flight (TOF) sensors, structured light sensors and/or infrared sensors or the like, may be engaged and may be recorded as well.

The trigger that the vehicle was (or imminently may be) hit or damaged may come from a vehicle alarm system, which may include or may be responsive to sensors for vibration, level changing, glass breaking, unauthorized door or ignition lock actuation or compartment ultrasound disturbances and/or the like.

Optionally, the data recording system of the present invention may include or utilize a sensing system that uses capacitive sensors, which may be installed in or at the rear bumper of the vehicle and/or the door handles of the vehicle (and typically operable to detect a person's hand at the door handle to open the vehicle door), but are not exclusively for triggering the recording system or the vehicle alarm system.

Alternatively, or in addition to such capacitive sensors, the trigger may be achieved by the image processing devices of the vehicle that are operable to process image data captured by the vehicle camera or cameras. Such image processing devices may take reference images from the environmental scene at the time the vehicle is parked, such as shown in FIG. 4. The object detection may determine non-moving or steady objects that are within detection range or field of view of the camera or cameras. The image data representative of the scene and/or the images of the scene may be stored as an initial reference (such as, for example, the image shown in FIG. 4). Other sensor data, such as the distance or level (to anything in the vehicle's environment) detected by different ultrasound sensors may be stored as well. In order to keep the electrical power consumption low, the system may operate to wake up in a cyclical pattern.

FIG. 3 shows a typical time pattern for the cyclical wake up and sleep pattern for the system of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 3, there are active or awake time phases ta and inactive or asleep time phases ti. For saving electrical energy of the vehicle's battery, the inactive phases are meant to be much longer than the active phases. Optionally, and desirably, the system may reduce or shut off as much power consumption as possible during the inactive time phases. Thus, it is envisioned that the life time of some components may be reduced due to excessive restarting or rebooting. Also, the initialization time of some image processing functional components may be comparably long so a shorter shut off time period may not be suitable. The imager, controllers and static memory components may suffer the most. Thus, the present invention preferably provides a good or acceptable balance by keeping the imager operating and avoiding the need of the processing unit except to run cyclically for the recording system, mostly on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

The data recording system may comprise one or more excitation status flags or state machines, the states of which equate to elapsed time, the environmental input and battery charge status. At cyclical wake ups, the system may enter an active or awake time phase ta, and may activate the vehicle cameras, the environmental sensors and the image processing device such as in the example shown in FIG. 2. In such an example, the processing steps may be:

    • (1) wake up;
    • (2) initialize camera(s);
    • (3) capture image(s);
    • (4) transfer image (to processing unit if not processed locally in camera);
    • (5) filter image (Gaus filter/Box filter/Mosaicing);
    • (6) load compare image (if not temporarily stored earlier);
    • (7) calculate difference image (or other suitable object detection);
    • (8) load ignore mask table;
    • (9) decide whether to initiate recording mode (video image capturing) jump to recording procedure (and exit the cyclical wake up mode);
    • (10) update ignore mask table;
    • (11) store image; and
    • (12) enter sleep phase (ti).
    • The captured data may initially or provisionally be stored local or at the vehicle. The storage media and the vehicle communication bus (such as, for example, a vehicle CAN bus or a vehicle LIN bus or the like) may stay asleep if not awakened or activated by entering a higher excitation state, which may be triggered by the object detection algorithm or when the local storage memory is nearly full (and not able to conceive another image capture data set). When awake (time phases ta), the data recording system may capture several images or video images or a movie, preferably capturing at least one image from one or more cameras (including remote cameras), and/or optionally the system may fetch or capture or determine a status of one or more external sensors and may compare these to earlier captured data sets. By cyclically taking just one image at a time (such as by capturing frames of image data with a selected or determined period of time between captures, such as, for example, less than or equal to about ten frames per second (fps) or about five fps about one fps or about 0.2 fps (one frame every five seconds) or about 0.1 fps (one frame every ten seconds) or one frame per minute or one frame per five minutes or any selected capture rate or time interval or period, a time lapse video develops of the scene encompassed by that camera's field of view. That time lapse video records the good or no-change case, when no disturbances happened nearby the parked vehicle. The time lapse may differ by the chosen wake up time gaps or time periods between image captures.

The data captured may be stored in a FIFO memory at which the oldest part of the lapse video and optionally other sensor data may be overwritten by the newer ones in cases where no vehicle alarm occurs, or alternatively the captured data may be stored in a memory device (in all cases), and the system may periodically back up the stored data and/or may transfer the stored data from a local memory device (such as a vision system or vehicle inherent memory device such as like a flash memory or solid state drive, which may be exchangeable by the vehicle owner) to a remote or external memory device (such as via a telematics system or other communication or data transfer system). The captured images or video and optionally other sensor data may be stored/transferred in a compressed data format or as RAW or may be stored in RAW locally and transferred compressed or may be stored compressed locally and transferred in RAW. In cases where the system employs an object detection algorithm, the system may store images in the area or areas of moving objects and/or regions of interest in a high definition and/or uncompressed format, and the system may store images in other areas or parts of less interest at or surrounding the vehicle in a low definition or compressed format for shrinking the data size for storing or transmission.

The backup and storage modes or means may be customizable by the vision system manufacturer, the OEM, the dealership, third party services or the owner of the vehicle, and the system may communicate a message or alert (optionally a text message or the like or a video message or still photo or image message or the like) to the driver or owner of the vehicle (such as to the driver's cell phone or PDA or the like) in response to a triggering event occurring. Accordingly, viewing-programs or apps may be provided by the vehicle or vision system manufacturer or vendors or by aftermarket distributers. These may provide additional services such as a function to automatically guide the police to the vehicle by the driver's request (such as via his or her cell phone or PDA program or app).

An object detection (OD) algorithm or feature extractor (such as one that may be based on optical flow, difference images or edge detection, such as Lucas Kanade, Zobel, Laplace or such as FAST or the like) may also be employed for comparing whether objects have entered the scene (such as shown in FIG. 5, where two people are walking by the vehicle) that weren't present earlier (see FIG. 4) or which have moved since the last wake up phase. To detect humans within an image there may be classifiers in use such as like ‘Viola Jones’, ‘Fastest Pedestrian Detector in the West’ or HOG (Histogram of Orientated Gradients) or the like. This is the ‘positive’ or changed case, which leads to a sensor wake up mode according to state (9) in FIG. 2. When a signal is generated indicative of a determined threshold change in the frames of captured image data, the control increases the frequency or frame capture rate of the camera (reduces the time period between frame captures), such as to greater than or equal to about ten fps or about twenty fps or about thirty fps or any other selected rate or frequency or capture rate) and activates or controls the recording device to record the captured image data and store the captured image data.

A simple and practical embodiment of an OD may be to use an image difference procedure. To shrink the to-be-compared image properties, the images may be additionally processed by a mosaicing filter, a Gaussian filter or a box filter or the like (see step 5 in FIG. 2) before difference calculating (see step 7 in FIG. 2). FIG. 6 shows the scene or image of FIG. 4 when mosaiced and FIG. 7 shows the scene or image of FIG. 5 when mosaiced. FIG. 8 shows the result when calculating the difference between the images of FIGS. 7 and 6 (for better readability herein the image in FIG. 8 was inverted, the feature information with images does not change by that).

In FIG. 9A, the brightness of some of the interesting pixels/areas are marked by inclining numbers, with the greater numbers applied at the pixels or areas that have a greater difference between the initial image (FIGS. 4 and 6) and the later image (FIGS. 5 and 7). FIG. 9B is a sectional cut out of that same scene, showing the difference area enlarged. FIG. 10A is the image of FIG. 9A after a contrast enhancement (alternatively a histogram or cut filtering may be used), and FIG. 10B is a cut out of the same region shown in FIG. 9B as cut out of FIG. 10A, showing the difference area enlarged. The contrast enhancement, histogram or cut filtering may include the difference calculating step (see step 7 in FIG. 2) by choosing the according mapping parameters initially. As can be seen with reference to these figures, it becomes clear that the lighter areas represent areas where a low average of differing pixels have been eliminated. Areas which have massively changed or substantially changed (darker areas in this inverted image) are the areas where people or objects have appeared (real change, meant for triggering), while the rest of the scene has stayed mostly unchanged (meant for not triggering), except for some minor differences on strong contrast thresholds caused by slightly inaccurate image superposition (such as image noise natural for electronic cameras that may be widely eliminated by the earlier filtering (see step 5 in FIG. 2)).

FIGS. 11A, 11B show the same scene of FIGS. 9A, 9B and 10A, 10B with the brightness value labels adapted to the new light settings.

In cases where there are mosaics remaining which are not uneven or zero or eliminated, the system may assume that something has changed in the scene from the image in FIG. 4 to the image in FIG. 5. The system thus may assume a motion has happened or light conditions have abruptly changed. In cases where nothing has changed, the system may enter a power saving sleep state (again), and this equates to the path following ‘no’ from the decision block of the flow chart in FIG. 12.

The data recording system may record a fast motion flic or video responsive to a trigger or indication that a threshold difference was determined during the comparison of a frame of captured image data to the previous frame or initial frame of captured image data. This equates to the path following ‘yes’ from the decision block of the flow chart in FIG. 12. The decision block of FIG. 12 requires a minimum amount of differing mosaics dx,y to limit or substantially preclude triggering responsive to image noise. There may be environmental scenes in which the system becomes disturbed and/or awakened quite often. In such a situation, the data recording system may engage the peripheral sensors, the cameras and data buses very often, which may lead to substantial draining of the vehicle's battery, which may lead to the consequence that the system's or vehicle's battery power management would have to turn off the vehicle data recording system entirely, and possibly very soon, such as within or after about two hours (of being awake very often or all the time).

To achieve a less substantial draining of the vehicle battery and to provide a longer stand by time of the recording system's functionality, the data recording system of the present invention may be able to distinguish or sort out or suppress the wake up (input-) events or sources. For example, in a situation where there is a bush or branch within the camera's capturing range or field of view, with the bush or tree or the like having a branch or branches waving in the wind, the branch or branches may be detected as movement of an object within two (or more) consecutive cyclically captured image data sets by the difference comparison. For example, the branch shown in FIG. 13 may appear as mosaiced difference image like the image shown in FIG. 14. The system may be operable to identify that detection area as being the source for false triggering (wake up) by statistical means. The system may have an array of memory in the same size ratio as the pixels on the imager or the same size ratio as the captured mosaic image (see the example shown in FIG. 15 having an (mosaic areas equating) array of 0x0F by 0x0F) called ‘dx,y’, with the size X by Y, in the flow chart of FIG. 12. For each pixel or mosaic there may be a value (such as, for example, four bit or the like) storing the disturbance counter ‘d’ event history of being a pixel or mosaic ‘p’ differing at the image data difference comparison px,y(tn)−px,y(tn-1) when comparing the p0,0 (upper left corner of the array) to px,y (lower right corner of the array). As an example, two consecutive triggerings that may occur due to a waving branch such as like that shown in FIGS. 13 and 14 may influence the disturbance counters dx,y illustrated in FIGS. 16A and 17A having the resulting disturbance counter table entries such as like those shown in FIGS. 16B and 17B accordingly.

The data recording system may include a certain event history counter level (which may be fix or adjusted by algorithm), such as, for example, 6 (or more or less), which leads to the consequence that the according pixel will not be considered (ignored) as a wake up trigger source until falling under the counter level borderline again. Optionally, the system may include an algorithm that may decrease the event history counter level (of one, several or all pixels). This may happen by time, by trigger events or by other difference pixel statistical means. In the flow chart of FIG. 12, for example, there is a threshold ‘tr’ of the disturbance counter ‘d’ (equal for all ‘p’) with the exemplary value 6. That means if one pixel or mosaic's counter is exceeded so as to be involved to trigger the resulting image difference events over a short duration, the pixel or mosaic (if having a disturbance counter greater than the threshold value) may be ignored by setting its masking bit mx,y to zero. By masking the difference images before doing the trigger decision, the specific areas become ignored in determining the triggering. In the example over time the area (x,y positions of dx,y) in the image covered by the waving branch would soon have several positions which exceed the value 5, which would result in the system ignoring that area by masking it's pixels or mosaics. Thus, detection of the moving branch would not trigger activation of the video image data capture.

Optionally, another procedure may be to decrease the disturbance event history counter. This is for re-enabling areas which have been masked earlier when their disturbing ratio is diminishing. In the example above, the waving branch may stop waving due to the wind lessening. In the exemplary flow chart of FIG. 12, the disturbance counter dx,y may be diminished by one tenth on every disturbance event (at which a specific pixel or mosaic isn't participating (><0)). Another divisor ‘r’ counts the events and how often a dx,y has changed from above the threshold ‘tr’ to below the threshold. The default and minimum of ‘r’ is 1. As soon as ‘r’ increases, the disturbance counter will decrease respectively slower according to the term dx,y=dx,y−0,1/rx,y. When ‘r’ is 2, ‘d’ diminishes by one every 20th disturbance event, and when ‘r’ is 3, ‘d’ diminishes by one every 30th disturbance event, and so on. This is provided to reduce or eliminate (masking) disturbance sources which are cyclically present from time to time but not steadily present, such as a waving branch in intermittent wind conditions or a flickering street light, which is only on at night, or the like.

To decrease the false case rate and the calculation resource demand, the supervised scenery around the equipped vehicle may be limited by cropping or masking the captured images by a static mask. FIG. 18 shows a cropped image of FIG. 4, with its mosaiced image shown in FIG. 19.

At times when the vehicle is parked close to a crowded pedestrian path, such as a sidewalk at the right of the vehicle, the ultrasound sensors of the vehicle may detect entering and leaving objects (pedestrians) very often (leading to wake up events triggering the cameras to capture the scene), and the system may decide to have a higher robustness to disturbances due to such an (input-) event source. This may be done by changing the inputs' priority level for wake up or by employing a counter or sensitivity state machine or algorithm. The sensitivity may be counted up (less sensitive) when a trigger occurs by a specific input source (or input sensor type class or such). Substantial triggering will lead to a high level of insensitivity. The counter may be counted down over time (such as, for example, the counter may be counted down one increment every hour of a four bit counter). The one or all counter may be reset by a vehicle damage alert event directly followed by an according wake up trigger event. Optionally, the system may employ a learning algorithm in which the initial counter level may lead to an enhanced or optimal balance of system awareness/inactivity and battery life. The system thus may increase the threshold degree of differences that need to be determined before triggering the system, such that a greater difference or change over time is determined before the system will be awakened or triggered.

When the vehicle data recording system is engaged over several days and the vehicle is not driven to charge it's battery, the system may raise the insensitivity level of all sensors more and more and the system's cyclical wake up events may increase time wise (such as, for example, from ta+ti=1 s to 2 s, 4 s, 8 s, 16 s over to 32 s and so on). After a longer time, such as over one week or the like, the system may be switched off, whereby the cameras may be activated when the vehicle alert or security system engages, such as when triggered by an actually detected hit.

For applications in an electrical vehicle or the like, when the vehicle is plugged in (charging), the data recording system may run or operate in more sensitive (more power consuming) modes as compared to when the vehicle is unplugged. Both are shown in an example of FIG. 20. The activity percentage relates to the cycle times, and less activity equates to longer times of ta+ti, and higher activity equates to shorter times, adjusted by ta, ti. 100% may mean that the system may have a very short cycle time or even never turns into saving mode but records the scene all the time.

Optionally, the system may include features to increase the use cases, convenience and security of the system. For example, the system may be operable to, at the time a data recording alert is detected, send a text message over a mobile channel or a captured movie via UMTS, LTE or the like (to alert the owner of the vehicle of a triggering event of the data recording system), such as by utilizing aspects of the display and data communication system described in International Publication No. WO 2013/081985, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. The image, images or movie or data set captured by the system responsive to a triggering event (and optionally the current vehicle location as determined by the vehicle GPS) may be stored at a remote server for accessibility by the vehicle's owner or may be stored at a removable storage device as like a SD-card or the like, which may be removed from the vehicle and taken away by the vehicle owner.

Optionally, the vehicle owner may be able to enter settings for backup paths, cycles, modes, trigger sensitivity modes and/or power management modes and/or the like, according to the vehicle/car damage recording system. Optionally, the system may provide specified set up modes adapting the system to the local laws and legal modalities. For example, the system may blur the faces in its records automatically if required by the local laws (or if elected by user set up). Optionally, the actual vehicle location may come from a GPS receiver via a CAN bus of the vehicle or the like. Optionally, the system may trigger other systems or services, such as an alert system that notifies or calls the police, a parking lot guard, security service or the like, responsive to the vehicle being damaged or hit (or responsive to a triggering event). Optionally, the system may detect (via image capture by a camera of the system or vehicle), store and transmit the image of the license plate (or information derived from image processing of image data captured by the camera) of a hit and run vehicle and may additionally transmit such information or image data to the according (called) parking lot guard, security service or police (-man or -station). The vehicle data recording system may be part of a vehicle alarm system, a crash black box, a vehicle system integrity device (or system), a vehicle vision system or remote vehicle security surveillance (service) system and/or the like.

As another aspect of the present invention, the vehicle alert system may employ a known (commodity) jammer detector (such as shown, for example, at http://www.shop-alarm.de/GPS_-_GSM_-_WIFI_-_DECT_-_Bluetooth_Stoersender_und_Jammer_Detector.html), such as for any kind of data transmission band jamming the vehicle is using (GPRS, GSM, WLAN, DECT, WEP, UMTS, LTE and near field communication). Jammers may be misused to enable vehicle thefts to overcome the vehicle security systems or to lengthen the time they keep undiscovered, especially for suppressing the outbounding transmissions of vehicle alerts, images or flics to the owner or the police as described above. Jammer detectors are able to detect the presence of jammers 40 in range of the vehicle 10 (FIG. 21). The behavior of the vehicle alert system of the present invention responsive to the detected presence of a jamming device 40 in range may be to disable all usual vehicle access functionalities. That mode may be called a ‘safe one time access mode.’ By that a ‘Keyless Entry/Go’ may become disabled, and the vehicle key remote control opening may become disabled, and the vehicle entry access by turning the vehicle key in the door key hole may be disabled as well. The door dead bolts when present may be turned to lock if not done already. FIG. 21 illustrates such a scenario. As shown in FIG. 21, the vehicle may be equipped with such a jammer detector, whereby, if a GSM signal between a GSM tower 50 and the vehicle 10 is jammed (such as by any means or device for jamming or blocking or interfering with such signals), such as by a jammer device 40 at or near the vehicle, the vehicle owner's smart phone (here tablet) or other personal remote communication device may generate the message ‘vehicle signal lost’ to the user or vehicle owner (such as responsive to a signal indicative of the lost or interrupted signal). The vehicle, responsive to a determination of signal jamming, may fall into or switch to a ‘safe one time access mode’ to limit or substantially preclude a break in of the vehicle when the signal is being jammed.

As another aspect of the present invention, a smart phone app may be used for displaying the vehicle's safety status, and the app may be set up in a way that in case a cyclic feedback from the vehicle is interrupted or not provided (which may be caused by the presence of a jammer within the vehicle's radio range), the app will signal that the connection has been lost, which may indicate that the vehicle may be in an ‘unsafe’ or ‘endangered’ situation. Optionally, the status messages of a plurality of vehicles equipped with such a system may be accessible by parking guards, security or police services. Thus, at times when multiple vehicles report ‘connection lost’, such a determination or event may be a trigger for elevated scrutiny or security at or to the area where the reported vehicles are located.

As another aspect of the present invention, when the presence of the jammer may be not detectable any more, the vehicle may remain in the ‘safe one time access mode’, and may not be openable by key or remote device. To unlock the ‘safe one time access mode’, the driver may have to enter a PUC (personal unlock code). The PUC may be one the driver may have entered earlier, preferably a one time usable PUC may be generated and transmitted by a remote service server (provided by the vision system manufacturer or vendors, OEM, or third party service) to the vehicle or to the driver's mobile device (with unique device ID as unique identification) upon request. The server may only serve the PUC to earlier exclusively dedicated individuals. At the time someone requests a one time PUC, the server may enter a dialog for making sure no unauthorized user is attempting to acquire a PUC. That may be done in a known manner by requesting key data only a dedicated person can know, and these may have been entered earlier. The key data may be, for example, the date of birth, town of birth, maiden name, favorite pet's name, best friend in college or the like.

As another aspect of the present invention, the ‘safe one time access mode’ may have additional or alternative safety hurdles to overcome before unlocking beside the PUC entry, such as like identifying by dedicating a person's face detection, retina, fingerprint or by body shape classification, such as by utilizing aspects of the systems described in U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61/842,644, filed Jul. 3, 2013, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

As another aspect of the present invention, this function may be implemented in conjunction with or incorporated in or may be part of or used in combination with a keyless entry/go access admission system with visual driver identification, such as described in U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61/845,061, filed Jul. 11, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2145), which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

As another aspect of the present invention, the above vehicle park surveillance system (and optionally the above access admission system) may find use in conjunction with a power lift gate triggering and object collision prevention system, such as described in U.S. patent Ser. No. 14/159,772, filed Jan. 21, 2014 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2215), which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.

The Technische Universität München (TUM) published a solution for preventing pedestrians (as well as animals, cyclists and cars, hereinafter referred to as pedestrians) from hazards due to being hidden behind objects by carrying a transponder (which may be incorporated in a cell phone or the like) and permanently providing the actual position of it (and by that the carrying pedestrian) for being received by vehicle driver assistant systems for warning or actively preventing collisions by braking and assumingly invasive steering (see http://www.tum.de/die-tum/aktuelles/pressemitteilungen/kurz/article/31294/, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety). However, the requirement that the pedestrians must always carry a transponder in order to be detected by the driver assistant systems of vehicles is a suboptimal solution.

As another aspect of the present invention, one or more than one vehicles 20a-f may be parked at a local area, and may be equipped with the image processing system according the invention, and thus may be operable to detect or determine objects including pedestrians (90 in FIG. 22) by vehicle inherent sensors such as cameras 14c (with a field of view 80) in the manner as described above. In the illustrated scenario of FIG. 22, the parked vehicle 20a may occlude the pedestrians to the area of view of the camera or sensor 14b of the approaching vehicle 22. The vehicles 20a-f and 22 may be equipped with the devices according the invention including a ZigBee transmitter 70. The pedestrian's position at the area of sensor or camera view 80 of the vehicle 20a next to them would be determined by the vision system of the vehicle 20a, which may have been woken up or activated upon the pedestrians entering the scene. The ZigBee transmitters of vehicles 20b-f (which may be parked or moving) in the neighborhood may continuously transmit the pedestrian's position to the receiving ZigBee node 70 of the approaching vehicle 22.

For giving support to driver assistant system of driving vehicles in that local area, the detection information may not just be transmitted or sent to the specific parked individual vehicle's owner cell phone or the like, but may be sent to the driving vehicles so that local area driver assistant systems are also informed of the location of the detected pedestrian or pedestrians, and such communication may be made via any suitable type or kind of data channel (such as, for example, GPRS, GSM, WLAN, DECT, WEP, SMS, MMS, UMTS or LTE, and/or optically transmitted or communicated or connected inductively or by wire (especially the charging cable data, line of an e-car power outlet connected to a common data grid or the like)). There may be a cloud server, a mobile app, or kind of vehicle inherent app or algorithm for both receiving (from other driving vehicles) and transmitting (to the parked vehicle or vehicles) the data such as shown in above referenced and incorporated International Publication No. WO 2013/081985. The signal may run direct from vehicle to vehicle. The signal may be transmitted via more than one vehicle and/or infrastructure which may act as peers in a (may be temporary) local vehicle and/or infrastructure grid or mesh network or peer to peer network, such as like a ZigBee network or the like. In the example of FIG. 22, the ZigBee device 70 may be attached to or connected to or in communication with the vision system and/or camera (such as camera 14a of vision system 12). The driver assistant systems of the driving vehicle(s) 22 (driving in the direction of the white arrow 24 in FIG. 22) will use the received data (gray arrows 26 in FIG. 22) of detected pedestrians 90 occluded by the parked vehicles (and thus not in the are of view 100 of the driving vehicle 22) and especially their detected position and walking direction (black arrow 28 in FIG. 22) to determine potential collision hazards to the pedestrians which may be occluded from the driving vehicle's view 100 and optional other vehicle sensors. Responsive to a determination that the approaching or driving vehicle 22 may collide with the pedestrian(s) as the pedestrian(s) move out from behind the parked vehicle and into the path of travel of the approaching vehicle, the system of the approaching vehicle may generate an alert to the driver to warn the driver of the (as yet) not viewable pedestrians and their approach to the path of travel of the driven vehicle.

The camera or sensor may comprise any suitable camera or sensor. Optionally, the camera may comprise a “smart camera” that includes the imaging sensor array and associated circuitry and image processing circuitry and electrical connectors and the like as part of a camera module, such as by utilizing aspects of the vision systems described in International Publication Nos. WO 2013/081984 and/or WO 2013/081985, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

The system includes an image processor operable to process image data captured by the camera or cameras, such as for detecting objects or other vehicles or pedestrians or the like in the field of view of one or more of the cameras. For example, the image processor may comprise an EyeQ2 or EyeQ3 image processing chip available from Mobileye Vision Technologies Ltd. of Jerusalem, Israel, and may include object detection software (such as the types described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,855,755; 7,720,580; and/or 7,038,577, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties), and may analyze image data to detect vehicles and/or other objects. Responsive to such image processing, and when an object or other vehicle is detected, the system may generate an alert to the driver of the vehicle and/or may generate an overlay at the displayed image to highlight or enhance display of the detected object or vehicle, in order to enhance the driver's awareness of the detected object or vehicle or hazardous condition during a driving maneuver of the equipped vehicle.

The vehicle may include any type of sensor or sensors, such as imaging sensors or radar sensors or lidar sensors or ladar sensors or ultrasonic sensors or the like. The imaging sensor or camera may capture image data for image processing and may comprise any suitable camera or sensing device, such as, for example, a two dimensional array of a plurality of photosensor elements arranged in at least 640 columns and 480 rows (at least a 640×480 imaging array, such as a megapixel imaging array or the like), with a respective lens focusing images onto respective portions of the array. The photosensor array may comprise a plurality of photosensor elements arranged in a photosensor array having rows and columns. Preferably, the imaging array has at least 300,000 photosensor elements or pixels, more preferably at least 500,000 photosensor elements or pixels and more preferably at least 1 million photosensor elements or pixels. The imaging array may capture color image data, such as via spectral filtering at the array, such as via an RGB (red, green and blue) filter or via a red/red complement filter or such as via an RCC (red, clear, clear) filter or the like. The logic and control circuit of the imaging sensor may function in any known manner, and the image processing and algorithmic processing may comprise any suitable means for processing the images and/or image data.

For example, the vision system and/or processing and/or camera and/or circuitry may utilize aspects described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,005,974; 5,760,962; 5,877,897; 5,796,094; 5,949,331; 6,222,447; 6,302,545; 6,396,397; 6,498,620; 6,523,964; 6,611,202; 6,201,642; 6,690,268; 6,717,610; 6,757,109; 6,802,617; 6,806,452; 6,822,563; 6,891,563; 6,946,978; 7,859,565; 5,550,677; 5,670,935; 6,636,258; 7,145,519; 7,161,616; 7,230,640; 7,248,283; 7,295,229; 7,301,466; 7,592,928; 7,881,496; 7,720,580; 7,038,577; 6,882,287; 5,929,786 and/or 5,786,772, and/or International Publication Nos. WO 2011/028686; WO 2010/099416; WO 2012/061567; WO 2012/068331; WO 2012/075250; WO 2012/103193; WO 2012/0116043; WO 2012/0145313; WO 2012/0145501; WO 2012/145818; WO 2012/145822; WO 2012/158167; WO 2012/075250; WO 2012/0116043; WO 2012/0145501; WO 2012/154919; WO 2013/019707; WO 2013/016409; WO 2013/019795; WO 2013/067083; WO 2013/070539; WO 2013/043661; WO 2013/048994; WO 2013/063014, WO 2013/081984; WO 2013/081985; WO 2013/074604; WO 2013/086249; WO 2013/103548; WO 2013/109869; WO 2013/123161; WO 2013/126715; WO 2013/043661 and/or WO 2013/158592 and/or U.S. patent applications, Ser. No. 14/163,325, filed Jan. 24, 2014 (Attorney Docket No. MAG04 P-2216); Ser. No. 14/159,772, filed Jan. 21, 2014 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P2215); Ser. No. 14/107,624, filed Dec. 16, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2206); Ser. No. 14/102,981, filed Dec. 11, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2196); Ser. No. 14/102,980, filed Dec. 11, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2195); Ser. No. 14/098,817, filed Dec. 6, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2193); Ser. No. 14/097,581, filed Dec. 5, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2192); Ser. No. 14/093,981, filed Dec. 2, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2197); Ser. No. 14/093,980, filed Dec. 2, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2191); Ser. No. 14/082,573, filed Nov. 18, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2183); Ser. No. 14/082,574, filed Nov. 18, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2184); Ser. No. 14/082,575, filed Nov. 18, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2185); Ser. No. 14/082,577, filed Nov. 18, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2203); Ser. No. 14/071,086, filed Nov. 4, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P2208); Ser. No. 14/076,524, filed Nov. 11, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2209); Ser. No. 14/052,945, filed Oct. 14, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2165); Ser. No. 14/046,174, filed Oct. 4, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2158); Ser. No. 14/016,790, filed Oct. 3, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2139); Ser. No. 14/036,723, filed Sep. 25, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2148); Ser. No. 14/016,790, filed Sep. 3, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2139); Ser. No. 14/001,272, filed Aug. 23, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1824); Ser. No. 13/970,868, filed Aug. 20, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2131); Ser. No. 13/964,134, filed Aug. 12, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2123); Ser. No. 13/942,758, filed Jul. 16, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2127); Ser. No. 13/942,753, filed Jul. 16, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2112); Ser. No. 13/927,680, filed Jun. 26, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2091); Ser. No. 13/916,051, filed Jun. 12, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2081); Ser. No. 13/894,870, filed May 15, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2062); Ser. No. 13/887,724, filed May 6, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2072); Ser. No. 13/852,190, filed Mar. 28, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P2046); Ser. No. 13/851,378, filed Mar. 27, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2036); Ser. No. 13/848,796, filed Mar. 22, 2012 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2034); Ser. No. 13/847,815, filed Mar. 20, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2030); Ser. No. 13/800,697, filed Mar. 13, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2060); Ser. No. 13/785,099, filed Mar. 5, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2017); Ser. No. 13/779,881, filed Feb. 28, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2028); Ser. No. 13/774,317, filed Feb. 22, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2015); Ser. No. 13/774,315, filed Feb. 22, 2013 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-2013); Ser. No. 13/681,963, filed Nov. 20, 2012 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1983); Ser. No. 13/660,306, filed Oct. 25, 2012 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1950); Ser. No. 13/653,577, filed Oct. 17, 2012 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1948); and/or Ser. No. 13/534,657, filed Jun. 27, 2012 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1892), and/or U.S. provisional applications, Ser. No. 61/919,129, filed Dec. 20, 2013; Ser. No. 61/919,130, filed Dec. 20, 2013; Ser. No. 61/919,131, filed Dec. 20, 2013; Ser. No. 61/919,147, filed Dec. 20, 2013; Ser. No. 61/919,138, filed Dec. 20, 2013, Ser. No. 61/919,133, filed Dec. 20, 2013; Ser. No. 61/918,290, filed Dec. 19, 2013; Ser. No. 61/915,218, filed Dec. 12, 2013; Ser. No. 61/912,146, filed Dec. 5, 2013; Ser. No. 61/911, 666, filed Dec. 4, 2013; Ser. No. 61/911,665, filed Dec. 4, 2013; Ser. No. 61/905,461, filed Nov. 18, 2013; Ser. No. 61/905,462, filed Nov. 18, 2013; Ser. No. 61/901,127, filed Nov. 7, 2013; Ser. No. 61/895,610, filed Oct. 25, 2013; Ser. No. 61/895,609, filed Oct. 25, 2013; Ser. No. 61/886,883, filed Oct. 4, 2013; Ser. No. 61/879,837, filed Sep. 19, 2013; Ser. No. 61/879,835, filed Sep. 19, 2013; Ser. No. 61/878,877, filed Sep. 17, 2013; Ser. No. 61/875,351, filed Sep. 9, 2013; Ser. No. 61/869,195, filed. Aug. 23, 2013; Ser. No. 61/864,835, filed Aug. 12, 2013; Ser. No. 61/864,836, filed Aug. 12, 2013; Ser. No. 61/864,837, filed Aug. 12, 2013; Ser. No. 61/864,838, filed Aug. 12, 2013; Ser. No. 61/856,843, filed Jul. 22, 2013, Ser. No. 61/845,061, filed Jul. 11, 2013; Ser. No. 61/844,630, filed Jul. 10, 2013; Ser. No. 61/844,173, filed Jul. 9, 2013; Ser. No. 61/844,171, filed Jul. 9, 2013; Ser. No. 61/842,644, filed Jul. 3, 2013; Ser. No. 61/840,542, filed Jun. 28, 2013; Ser. No. 61/838,619, filed Jun. 24, 2013; Ser. No. 61/838,621, filed Jun. 24, 2013; Ser. No. 61/837,955, filed Jun. 21, 2013; Ser. No. 61/836,900, filed Jun. 19, 2013; Ser. No. 61/836,380, filed Jun. 18, 2013; Ser. No. 61/834,129, filed Jun. 12, 2013; Ser. No. 61/833,080, filed Jun. 10, 2013; Ser. No. 61/830,375, filed Jun. 3, 2013; Ser. No. 61/830,377, filed Jun. 3, 2013; Ser. No. 61/825,752, filed May 21, 2013; Ser. No. 61/825,753, filed May 21, 2013; Ser. No. 61/823,648, filed May 15, 2013; Ser. No. 61/823,644, filed May 15, 2013; Ser. No. 61/821,922, filed May 10, 2013; Ser. No. 61/819,835, filed May 6, 2013; Ser. No. 61/819,033, filed May 3, 2013; Ser. No. 61/816,956, filed Apr. 29, 2013; Ser. No. 61/815,044, filed Apr. 23, 2013; Ser. No. 61/814,533, filed Apr. 22, 2013; Ser. No. 61/813,361, filed Apr. 18, 2013; Ser. No. 61/810,407, filed Apr. 10, 2013; Ser. No. 61/808,930, filed Apr. 5, 2013; Ser. No. 61/806,674, filed Mar. 29, 2013; Ser. No. 61/793,592, filed Mar. 15, 2013; Ser. No. 61/772,015, filed Mar. 4, 2013; Ser. No. 61/772,014, filed Mar. 4, 2013; Ser. No. 61/770,051, filed Feb. 27, 2013; Ser. No. 61/766,883, filed Feb. 20, 2013; and/or Ser. No. 61/760,366, filed Feb. 4, 2013, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The system may communicate with other communication systems via any suitable means, such as by utilizing aspects of the systems described in International Publication Nos. WO/2010/144900; WO 2013/043661 and/or WO 2013/081985, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/202,005, filed Aug. 17, 2011 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1595), which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

The imaging device and control and image processor and any associated illumination source, if applicable, may comprise any suitable components, and may utilize aspects of the cameras and vision systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,550,677; 5,877,897; 6,498,620; 5,670,935; 5,796,094; 6,396,397; 6,806,452; 6,690,268; 7,005,974; 7,937,667; 7,123,168; 7,004,606; 6,946,978; 7,038,577; 6,353,392; 6,320,176; 6,313,454; and 6,824,281, and/or International Publication Nos. WO 2010/099416; WO 2011/028686; and/or WO 2013/016409, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/508,840, filed Jul. 24, 2009, and published Jan. 28, 2010 as U.S. Pat. Publication No. US 2010-0020170, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/534,657, filed Jun. 27, 2012 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1892), which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The camera or cameras may comprise any suitable cameras or imaging sensors or camera modules, and may utilize aspects of the cameras or sensors described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/091,359, filed Apr. 24, 2008 and published Oct. 1, 2009 as U.S. Publication No. US-2009-0244361; and/or Ser. No. 13/260,400, filed Sep. 26, 2011 (Attorney Docket MAG04 P-1757), and/or U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,965,336 and/or 7,480,149, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The imaging array sensor may comprise any suitable sensor, and may utilize various imaging sensors or imaging array sensors or cameras or the like, such as a CMOS imaging array sensor, a CCD sensor or other sensors or the like, such as the types described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,550,677; 5,670,935; 5,760,962; 5,715,093; 5,877,897; 6,922,292; 6,757,109; 6,717,610; 6,590,719; 6,201,642; 6,498,620; 5,796,094; 6,097,023; 6,320,176; 6,559,435; 6,831,261; 6,806,452; 6,396,397; 6,822,563; 6,946,978; 7,339,149; 7,038,577; 7,004,606; 7,720,580; and/or 7,965,336, and/or International Publication Nos. WO/2009/036176 and/or WO/2009/046268, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

The camera module and circuit chip or board and imaging sensor may be implemented and operated in connection with various vehicular vision-based systems, and/or may be operable utilizing the principles of such other vehicular systems, such as a vehicle headlamp control system, such as the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,796,094; 6,097,023; 6,320,176; 6,559,435; 6,831,261; 7,004,606; 7,339,149; and/or 7,526,103, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, a rain sensor, such as the types disclosed in commonly assigned U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,353,392; 6,313,454; 6,320,176; and/or 7,480,149, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, a vehicle vision system, such as a forwardly, sidewardly or rearwardly directed vehicle vision system utilizing principles disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,550,677; 5,670,935; 5,760,962; 5,877,897; 5,949,331; 6,222,447; 6,302,545; 6,396,397; 6,498,620; 6,523,964; 6,611,202; 6,201,642; 6,690,268; 6,717,610; 6,757,109; 6,802,617; 6,806,452; 6,822,563; 6,891,563; 6,946,978; and/or 7,859,565, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, a trailer hitching aid or tow check system, such as the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,005,974, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety, a reverse or sideward imaging system, such as for a lane change assistance system or lane departure warning system or for a blind spot or object detection system, such as imaging or detection systems of the types disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,720,580; 7,038,577; 5,929,786 and/or 5,786,772, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/239,980, filed Sep. 30, 2005, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,881,496, and/or U.S. provisional applications, Ser. No. 60/628,709, filed Nov. 17, 2004; Ser. No. 60/614,644, filed Sep. 30, 2004; Ser. No. 60/618,686, filed Oct. 14, 2004; Ser. No. 60/638,687, filed Dec. 23, 2004, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, a video device for internal cabin surveillance and/or video telephone function, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,760,962; 5,877,897; 6,690,268; and/or 7,370,983, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/538,724, filed Jun. 13, 2005 and published Mar. 9, 2006 as U.S. Publication No. US-2006-0050018, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, a traffic sign recognition system, a system for determining a distance to a leading or trailing vehicle or object, such as a system utilizing the principles disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,396,397 and/or 7,123,168, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties, and/or the like.

Optionally, the circuit board or chip may include circuitry for the imaging array sensor and or other electronic accessories or features, such as by utilizing compass-on-a-chip or EC driver-on-a-chip technology and aspects such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,255,451 and/or U.S. Pat. No. 7,480,149; and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/226,628, filed Sep. 14, 2005 and published Mar. 23, 2006 as U.S. Publication No. US-2006-0061008, and/or Ser. No. 12/578,732, filed Oct. 14, 2009 (Attorney Docket DON01 P-1564), which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

Optionally, the vision system may include a display for displaying images captured by one or more of the imaging sensors for viewing by the driver of the vehicle while the driver is normally operating the vehicle. Optionally, for example, the vision system may include a video display device disposed at or in the interior rearview mirror assembly of the vehicle, such as by utilizing aspects of the video mirror display systems described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,690,268 and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/333,337, filed Dec. 21, 2011 (Attorney Docket DON01 P-1797), which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The video mirror display may comprise any suitable devices and systems and optionally may utilize aspects of the compass display systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,370,983; 7,329,013; 7,308,341; 7,289,037; 7,249,860; 7,004,593; 4,546,551; 5,699,044; 4,953,305; 5,576,687; 5,632,092; 5,677,851; 5,708,410; 5,737,226; 5,802,727; 5,878,370; 6,087,953; 6,173,508; 6,222,460; 6,513,252; and/or 6,642,851, and/or European patent application, published Oct. 11, 2000 under Publication No. EP 0 1043566, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/226,628, filed Sep. 14, 2005 and published Mar. 23, 2006 as U.S. Publication No. US-2006-0061008, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. Optionally, the video mirror display screen or device may be operable to display images captured by a rearward viewing camera of the vehicle during a reversing maneuver of the vehicle (such as responsive to the vehicle gear actuator being placed in a reverse gear position or the like) to assist the driver in backing up the vehicle, and optionally may be operable to display the compass heading or directional heading character or icon when the vehicle is not undertaking a reversing maneuver, such as when the vehicle is being driven in a forward direction along a road (such as by utilizing aspects of the display system described in PCT Application No. PCT/US2011/056295, filed Oct. 14, 2011 and published Apr. 19, 2012 as International Publication No. WO 2012/051500, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety).

Optionally, the vision system (utilizing the forward facing camera and a rearward facing camera and other cameras disposed at the vehicle with exterior fields of view) may be part of or may provide a display of a top-down view or birds-eye view system of the vehicle or a surround view at the vehicle, such as by utilizing aspects of the vision systems described in International Publication Nos. WO 2010/099416; WO 2011/028686; WO2012/075250; WO 2013/019795; WO 2012/075250; WO 2012/145822; WO 2013/081985; WO 2013/086249; and/or WO 2013/109869, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/333,337, filed Dec. 21, 2011 (Attorney Docket DON01 P-1797), which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

Optionally, a video mirror display may be disposed rearward of and behind the reflective element assembly and may comprise a display such as the types disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,530,240; 6,329,925; 7,855,755; 7,626,749; 7,581,859; 7,446,650; 7,370,983; 7,338,177; 7,274,501; 7,255,451; 7,195,381; 7,184,190; 5,668,663; 5,724,187 and/or 6,690,268, and/or in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/226,628, filed Sep. 14, 2005 and published Mar. 23, 2006 as U.S. Publication No. US-2006-0061008; and/or Ser. No. 10/538,724, filed Jun. 13, 2005 and published Mar. 9, 2006 as U.S. Publication No. US-2006-0050018, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The display is viewable through the reflective element when the display is activated to display information. The display element may be any type of display element, such as a vacuum fluorescent (VF) display element, a light emitting diode (LED) display element, such as an organic light emitting diode (OLED) or an inorganic light emitting diode, an electroluminescent (EL) display element, a liquid crystal display (LCD) element, a video screen display element or backlit thin film transistor (TFT) display element or the like, and may be operable to display various information (as discrete characters, icons or the like, or in a multi-pixel manner) to the driver of the vehicle, such as passenger side inflatable restraint (PSIR) information, tire pressure status, and/or the like. The mirror assembly and/or display may utilize aspects described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,184,190; 7,255,451; 7,446,924 and/or 7,338,177, which are all hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties. The thicknesses and materials of the coatings on the substrates of the reflective element may be selected to provide a desired color or tint to the mirror reflective element, such as a blue colored reflector, such as is known in the art and such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,910,854; 6,420,036; and/or 7,274,501, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

Optionally, the display or displays and any associated user inputs may be associated with various accessories or systems, such as, for example, a tire pressure monitoring system or a passenger air bag status or a garage door opening system or a telematics system or any other accessory or system of the mirror assembly or of the vehicle or of an accessory module or console of the vehicle, such as an accessory module or console of the types described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,289,037; 6,877,888; 6,824,281; 6,690,268; 6,672,744; 6,386,742; and 6,124,886, and/or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/538,724, filed Jun. 13, 2005 and published Mar. 9, 2006 as U.S. Publication No. US-2006-0050018, which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entireties.

Changes and modifications to the specifically described embodiments may be carried out without departing from the principles of the present invention, which is intended to be limited only by the scope of the appended claims as interpreted according to the principles of patent law.

Claims

1. A vision system for a vehicle, said vehicle vision system comprising:

at least one camera disposed at a vehicle equipped with said vehicle vision system, wherein said at least one camera has a field of view exterior the equipped vehicle and is operable to capture image data;
an image processor operable to process image data captured by said at least one camera;
a recording device operable to record images captured by said at least one camera;
a control controlling operation of said at least one camera;
wherein said control, responsive to a determination that the equipped vehicle is in a parked state, controls said at least one camera to capture frames of image data at a first capture rate;
wherein, responsive to image processing of captured image data, said control compares a frame of captured image data to at least one previous frame of captured image data; and
wherein, responsive to said comparison determining a change in the frames of captured image data beyond a threshold degree of change, (i) said control increases the capture rate to a second capture rate, (ii) said at least one camera captures frames of image data at said second capture rate and (iii) said control activates said recording device to record images captured at said second capture rate.

2. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein, responsive to determination of said threshold degree of change, said control activates at least one other camera or sensor to capture data and said recording device records information captured by said at least one other camera or sensor.

3. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said first capture rate is less than or equal to about five frames per second and wherein said second capture rate is greater than or equal to about 10 frames per second.

4. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said control is operable to determine a repeating movement in a region encompassed by the field of view of said at least one camera, and wherein, responsive to said determination of a repeating movement, said control ignores the portion of captured image data that corresponds to that region.

5. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said control, responsive to determination of a threshold level of repeating activity at at least a portion of captured image data, increases the threshold degree of change.

6. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said control, responsive to a determination of a pedestrian in the field of view of said at least one camera, generates a signal to other vehicles indicative of the determined pedestrian.

7. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said control, responsive to a signal received from another vehicle that is indicative of a determination of a pedestrian at or near the other vehicle who is moving towards the path of travel of the equipped vehicle, generates an alert to the driver of the equipped vehicle.

8. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said control, responsive to determination of an interruption in a signal communicated to said control from a remote transmitter, at least temporarily disables an access system of the equipped vehicle.

9. The vehicle vision system of claim 8, wherein, responsive to determination of the interruption of the signal communicated to said control, a person situated remote from the equipped vehicle is alerted.

10. The vehicle vision system of claim 9, wherein said person is alerted via a hand held device.

11. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said at least one camera comprises a plurality of cameras having respective exterior fields of view, said cameras comprising at least a part of a surround view system of the equipped vehicle.

12. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said at least one camera comprises a forward viewing camera of the equipped vehicle, and wherein said image processor processes captured image data when the vehicle is operating for at least one of (i) a headlamp control system of the equipped vehicle, (ii) a lane change assistance system of the equipped vehicle and (iii) a lane departure warning system of the equipped vehicle.

13. The vehicle vision system of claim 1, wherein said at least one camera comprises a rearward viewing camera of the equipped vehicle, and wherein said image processor processes captured image data when the vehicle is operating for at least one of (i) a rear backup assist system of the equipped vehicle and (ii) a surround view system of the equipped vehicle.

14. A vision system for a vehicle, said vehicle vision system comprising:

a plurality of cameras disposed at a vehicle equipped with said vehicle vision system, wherein said cameras having respective fields of view exterior the equipped vehicle and is operable to capture image data;
an image processor operable to process image data captured by said cameras;
a recording device operable to record images captured by said cameras;
a control controlling operation of said cameras;
wherein said control, responsive to a determination that the equipped vehicle is in a parked state, controls said cameras to capture respective frames of image data at a first capture rate;
wherein, responsive to image processing of image data captured by said cameras, said control compares a frame of image data captured by an individual camera to at least one previous frame of image data captured by that individual camera; and
wherein, responsive to said comparison determining a change in the frames of image data captured by an individual camera beyond a threshold degree of change, (i) said control increases the capture rate to a second capture rate for at least that individual camera, (ii) at least that individual camera captures frames of image data at said second capture rate and (iii) said control activates said recording device to record images captured at said second capture rate by at least that individual camera.

15. The vehicle vision system of claim 14, wherein, responsive to determination of said threshold degree of change in frames of image data captured by an individual camera, (i) said control increases the capture rate of the others of said cameras to said second capture rate, (ii) the others of said cameras capture frames of image data at said second capture rate and (iii) said recording device records images captured at said second capture rate by the others of said cameras.

16. The vehicle vision system of claim 14, wherein said control, responsive to determination of a threshold level of repeating activity at at least a portion of image data captured by at least one of said cameras, increases the threshold degree of change.

17. The vehicle vision system of claim 14, wherein said control, responsive to a determination of a pedestrian in the field of view of at least one of said cameras, generates a signal to other vehicles indicative of the determined pedestrian.

18. The vehicle vision system of claim 14, wherein said plurality of cameras and said image processor comprise at least a part of a surround view system of the equipped vehicle.

19. A vision system for a vehicle, said vehicle vision system comprising:

a plurality of cameras disposed at a vehicle equipped with said vehicle vision system, wherein said cameras having respective fields of view exterior the equipped vehicle and is operable to capture image data;
an image processor operable to process image data captured by said cameras;
wherein said plurality of cameras and said image processor comprise at least a part of a surround view system of the equipped vehicle;
a recording device operable to record images captured by said cameras;
a control controlling operation of said cameras;
wherein said control, responsive to a determination that the equipped vehicle is in a parked state, controls said cameras to capture respective frames of image data at a first capture rate;
wherein, responsive to image processing of image data captured by said cameras, said control compares a frame of image data captured by an individual camera to at least one previous frame of image data captured by that individual camera; and
wherein, responsive to said comparison determining a change in the frames of image data captured by an individual camera beyond a threshold degree of change, (i) said control increases the capture rate to a second capture rate for at least that individual camera, (ii) at least that individual camera captures frames of image data at said second capture rate and (iii) said control activates said recording device to record images captured at said second capture rate by at least that individual camera;
wherein said control, responsive to determination of a threshold level of repeating activity at at least a portion of captured image data of at least one of said cameras, increases the threshold degree of change.

20. The vehicle vision system of claim 19, wherein, responsive to determination of said threshold degree of change in frames of image data captured by an individual camera, (i) said control increases the capture rate of the others of said cameras to said second capture rate, (ii) the others of said cameras capture frames of image data at said second capture rate and (iii) said recording device records images captured at said second capture rate by the others of said cameras.

Patent History
Publication number: 20140218529
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 31, 2014
Publication Date: Aug 7, 2014
Applicant: MAGNA ELECTRONICS INC. (Holly, MI)
Inventors: Hossam Mahmoud (Goethestr), Christian Traub (Windach), Arno Krapf (Darmstadt)
Application Number: 14/169,329
Classifications
Current U.S. Class: Vehicular (348/148)
International Classification: H04N 7/18 (20060101);